Tour of California: Riders to Watch

Marcel Kittel (Argos-Shimano)

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Germany's Marcel Kittel won a whopping 17 races in 2011, quite a tally for a rider few people had heard of until he won four of five stages at the Four Days of Dunkirk race last May. He now turns his sights on stage wins at the Tour of California as the focal point of his team, Argos-Shimano. With top sprinters such as Mark Cavendish and Tyler Farrar racing at the Tour of Italy and others like Tom Boonen and Peter Sagan returning to racing after long spring Classics campaigns, Kittel could rule the roost on more than one occasion in California.